Articles coated with pressure sensitive adhesive find many uses in the medical and surgical products area. Examples of medical adhesive composites include bandages, dressings, drapes, electrodes, etc. These items are typically packaged to prevent contamination and, in some cases, maintain their sterility until the package in which the medical adhesive composites are located. The packaging must also typically allow for sterilization after the medical adhesive composites have been packaged.
Among the products that are considered medical adhesive composites are polymeric film dressings. These dressings are widely used as protective layers over wounds because they facilitate healing in a moist environment while acting as a barrier to contaminating liquids and bacteria. The polymeric films are also used as surgical drapes because of their barrier properties. Dressings and drapes fitting the above description are available under a number of trade names such as TEGADERM.TM. (3M Company, St. Paul, Minn.), BIOCLUSIVE.TM. (Johnson & Johnson Company, New Brunswick, N.J.), OP-SITE.TM. (T. J. Smith & Nephew, Hull, England), and UNIFLEX.TM. (How Medica, Largo, Fla.).
The polymeric films used in those dressings are conformable, i.e., the films are extremely thin, flexible and supple and usually transparent. They are typically supplied with a releasable protective liner covering the adhesive coated surface of the film. When the liner is removed, the adhesive coated film tends to wrinkle and adhere to itself, interfering with the smooth, aseptic application of the dressing to a patient's skin. Various delivery systems have been proposed to address this problem.
A number of the delivery systems rely on a carrier frame to prevent wrinkling of the film before application to a patient's skin by providing a more rigid construction. The frame can then typically be removed after the dressing is in place. Examples of some frame-delivered thin film dressings are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,531,855 issued Jul. 2, 1996, titled CARRIER DELIVERED DRESSING AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURE; EPO Publication No. 0 051 935; U.S. Pat. No. Re 33,727.
A number of these delivery systems include a liner to protect the adhesive on the thin film dressing before application to the patient. In use, the liner should be removed to expose the adhesive that attaches the dressing to a patient before the carrier is removed from the dressing. The carrier is removed when the dressing is in place on the patient. Some users may remove the carrier before the liner which can cause the dressing to fold onto itself in part or total. As a result there is a need for an adhesive composite dressing and packaging system that facilitates rapid, uniform application of thin film dressings onto a patient.